March 19, 2009

It's Not Just An eBook, It's A Free Book

1. It's short. You can read it in about an hour. Since most ad people have nothing to do now anyway, you can be done with it by lunch.

2. I apologize to those who have been waiting patiently. Like everything ever created for the web, this has taken way longer than anticipated.

3. Most of the content of the book can be found on the blog, but it takes a lot of rummaging and clicking to find the non-turds in this mess. The book is easier.

4. The book does exist in hard copy, but it's become too damn expensive to print and mail and I don't like the idea of charging for it. If you really need a hard copy or two (like if you teach a class or if you've run out of fire wood) we'll send you some.

5. If you are an advertiser and you read the book and at some point you say to yourself, "This is the first freakin' thing about advertising I've ever read that makes any sense," you have an obligation to call me to talk about your advertising. (Hey, it's a recession. We all need to hustle a little.)

"You say what we all say when we're together in a room and the doors are shut...Then we all talk publicly exactly the same crap we railed against in private. Thanks for restoring a bit of my sanity."- Dave Trott (if you don't know who Dave Trott is, go back to ad school)“This is full of fresh, surprising, in-your-face insights into how just about everything we take as gospel in advertising is wrong. I guess what Bob Hoffman is saying is that if we want to talk sense to our clients and set reasonable goals for our work, we’re going to have to come up with a whole new language and belief system for what advertising is supposed to do, based not on clichés, but on how things really are.” — Andrew Jaffe, Executive Director, Clio Awards; President, Compass Consulting

“Bob’s approach to the ideas of simplicity and focus is refreshing. I began discussing these with agencies and staff the day after finishing the book.” — Neil Golden, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald’s USA

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Shakespeare was a storyteller. You're a copywriter.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business requires sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."